Valuable and urgent letters and parcels left undelivered for days in a Somerset Delivery Office!
Shocking facts have come to light concerning the total failure of Royal Mail managers at Bridgwater Delivery Office to ensure letters, packets and parcels, to both households and businesses, are not delayed by up to a whole week. Managers are also closing the ‘Callers’ Office’ early with very little notice, so that people are driving in from as far as Ashcott, Burtle and Holford to claim their mail item, only to realise they have wasted their journey.
Recent examples of chronic delivery failure, for which Bridgwater’s postmen and women are NOT at all responsible, include:
- Mother’s Day cards and flowers still lying in the delivery office, FIVE DAYS after;
- Wyld’s Road and other business areas not receiving mail for up to a whole week
- Council Tax bills being delivered up to a week late;
- Special Deliveries-by definition valuable and urgent items-not being delivered till hours after the deadline for compensation of 1pm. These can include passports, airline tickets, etc, whose non-arrival can mean holiday cancellations;
- “Tracked” bar-coded parcels, due for delivery within 24 hours of posting, not being delivered for a week or more;
- Over 1,000 parcels, most weeks, have not only not been delivered, but are still in the office awaiting delivery at the week’s end.
- Postmen and women are being refused overtime to complete deliveries, to ‘save money,’ while managers are using casual labour on Sundays to clear up the week’s delivery failures, at a huge cost increase to Royal Mail;
- Managers are sending deliberately misleading e-mails to members of the public, stating -in effect-that “An attempt has been made to deliver your letter/packet/parcel, but you were not at home/or we were unable to deliver.” When NO ATTEMPT HAS BEEN MADE TO DELIVER THAT ITEM, WHICH WAS STILL STUCK IN THE DELIVERY OFFICE!
Bridgwater Anger
Closure of the “Callers’ Office”: Bridgwater postmen and women are right angry that the public are being given misleading reasons for this vital facility is being closed early on a regular basis. Postmen and women who are willing to help out and staff the “Callers’ Office” to keep it open for the full hours (ie. 8am to 12 am Monday; 8am to 6pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday; 8am to 7pm Thursday; 8am to 1pm Saturday; 11am to 3pm Sunday) are being turned down, and told to perform other work.
Bridgwater staffing: The shocking truth is that there are currently up to unfilled 30 job vacancies at the Friarn St office. Instead of filling these vacancies to ensure the mail gets delivered on time, managers are planning to cut the equivalent of 18 full-time duties from the office, and forcing postmen and women to stay out longer on delivery every day to cover these lost jobs. So, rather than recruiting, managers are cutting jobs, which will mean there will be even more vacancies to fill.
Staff resignations: unsurprisingly, many loyal and long-serving postmen and women are not prepared to put up with unachievable daily workloads, the inevitable increased pressure and stress, and their jobs-and Royal Mail as a public service-being rapidly destroyed in front of their eyes.
As an inevitable consequence, in the week ending April 1st, five long-serving members of staff have resigned, who, between them, have recorded almost 120 years’ service. So, in a desperate spiral of ‘managed’ decline, the jobs gets worse, staff leave, and the job, and the public service, deteriorates even further.
Dave Chapple, Bridgwater Trades Union Council secretary, said: “This abject failure to perform Royal Mail’s elementary duty in Bridgwater is, or should be, a public scandal. Surely the public in Bridgwater, North Petherton and their surrounding villages, deserve better from Royal Mail? If this private company’s Chief Executive salaries and major shareholder dividends are being achieved at the expense of both staff and public, should not the re-nationalisation of Royal Mail be an urgent political issue, not just right now, but for the next General Election?”
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For further information, please contact Dave Chapple, Secretary, Bridgwater & District Trades Union Council, on 07707869144 <davidchapple2020@gmail.com>
The ‘official’ route to complain about Royal Mail service failures is the on-line “Royal Mail Customer Services” department, where frustrating delays are, unfortunately, all too frequent.
The public phone number to ask to speak to a Royal Mail manager at Bridgwater Delivery Office is 01278 467970. Please note that the worker who initially answers this number will not be a Royal Mail manager
Let’s hope that the next Labour Government re-nationalises and that it’s done quickly before it is too late!